Russia's Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeev, right, and Poland's Agriculture Minister Marek Sawicki meet in Moscow to discuss raising Russia's embargo on Polish meat.
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
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The Political Meat Combination
Russia agreed yesterday to raise the embargo on Poland’s meat that had been in force for two years. The political background of this decision is evident. Moscow has become more tolerant to Polish meat after the change of government in that state of Europe.
It was Russia’s Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeev that declared Moscow readiness to take off the embargo on Polish meat after negotiations with his Poland’s counterpart Marek Sawicki. “We have agreed that, early next week, the veterinary departments of two countries will seal a memorandum in Kaliningrad. After it, practically all restrictions will be raised,” Russia’s minister promised.
The tricky point is that, according to a representative of Poland’s foreign ministry, the memorandum will spell out not only the tough veterinary control of Russia over Poland’s enterprises but also the provisions, whereby Poland would independently choose what enterprises should be checked. The fact that Russia no longer presses for checking any plant in Poland signals that its decision to raise the embargo has been politically motivated.
Russia banned the Polish meat deliveries in November of 2005, giving violation of veterinary requirements as the reason. The problem soon turned into political clashes. A year ago, Poland banned the start of negotiations on a new partnership agreement between Russia and the EU. With regard to other disputes, including the U.S. plans to station 10 interceptors there, Moscow made clear that it wouldn’t soften the meat stance as long as the Kachinski brothers were in power.
The situation improved once Donald Tusk got the PM office as a result of October 21 parliamentary elections. Russia counts on sorting out all problems of Moscow and Warsaw, including the meat supplies, RF envoy to the EU Vladimir Chizhov announced in a couple of days after the elections.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 13, 2007
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